The French Revolution, like the American, did not dislodge the aristocracy to replace it with a democracy but rather dislodged a hereditary aristocracy to replace it with an elected aristocracy [...] a new upper bourgeoisie took power. It derived its legitimacy no longer from God, soil or birth but from another relic of the aristocratic era, elections. This explains the exhausting arguments about suffrage and the severe limitations placed on it, as only those who paid sufficient tax could qualify. Only one out of every six citizens in France was allowed to vote in the first parliamentary elections, according to the constitution of 1791. [...]
he says later on that elections were "never actually intended as a democractic instrument in the first place" which is an interesting point that I'll need to incorporate into my theory of drift